Week 24 – April 27, 2015

Well, well, well… let me see this last week has been pretty darn good! Can’t complain- Minnetonka has been treating me pretty darn well. 

Monday- April 20th

Tonight Sonia randomly text us out of the blue and asked us if we wanted to come over. We couldn’t believe it! That girl is normally so busy. The cool part was we didn’t have anything planned for 8:00 and when we got out of our last visit I looked at Sister Parke and said, “Well, has anyone just randomly texted us that they want us to come over?” And sure enough we had got that text from Sonia! Sonia had spoiled us by making some homemade popcorn and smoothies for us to enjoy while we caught up. She has been baptized for a couple of months now and seems to be doing really well. We were worried there for a minute when her boyfriend of like 6 years broke up with her (same guy that introduced her to the church). Thankfully, she is using her time and energy in healthy ways. Her latest thing she has been getting into is kickboxing and self-defense. What can I say, she’s pretty hardcore! She did give me this really cool quote though… this is for all us ladies out there! “Big girls may not cry… But grown women do. They pray. They let go and let God, they rise up like a boss and get on with life!” Can I get an AMEN to that! Anyways, it really was good to see Sonia and to know she is doing well.

Tuesdays- April 21st

Today was our weekly Snuffy’s lunch date with Brother Longstreet and then we stopped by Sister Yule’s work to visit her after. This has kind of turned into our normal Tuesday routine. That afternoon, Sister Parke and I got to spend a couple of hours with President Forbes (the mission president) and his wife. I’m not totally sure what Sister Parke was thinking, but she actually showed them the pictures we took at Goodwill of us all dressed up in those ridiculous outfits from last week. But they got a good laugh so at least we were able to make them smile with our silliness. That evening we went over to the Bak’s for dinner. They have some younger children so after we made my famous “Prayer Sandwiches”. The kids absolutely loved being able to say different things they could say in a prayer in order to put more things on their sandwich. At one point, someone said something and I put some mushrooms on the sandwich… instantly, Cooper's (the youngest boy) face just went sour! Apparently, mushrooms ruin a sandwich! Looks like I won’t be using mushrooms in the future when it comes to making “prayer sandwiches”.

Wednesday- April 22nd

Today we had our weekly district meeting. The Zone Leaders ended up joining us as well. Elder Hughes had a wonderful training for us on the atonement of Jesus Christ. Now most of you probably know about the love/hate relationship we have with the elders in our ward (ok—it’s just love, but we definitely play WAR with them) anyway, today after our meeting Elder Tillotson jumped into our back seat and STOLE Theodore (our little stuffed friend). Theo just happens to be the best little missionary bear out there. We keep him buckled up in the back seat at all times. This is not the first, but the SECOND time the elders have taken Theo from us! The first time we were able to get ahold of their keys and rescue Theo out of their trunk! I can’t believe they even had the nerve to try such a thing again! But don’t you worry; Sister Parke and I have a brilliant plan. Stay tuned for our attack back in the near future! ;)

Later that afternoon we were hoping to go and visit Sister Erlendsson, but she wasn’t in the mood for visits. She sounded extra blue so we decided if we couldn’t get inside to cheer her up there had to be another way! And that is when I came up with a wonderful idea… sidewalk chalk! Sister Erlendsson lives on the third floor of an eleven story building so in order for her to really be able to SEE anything down on the road we had to do something BIG and well that’s exactly what we did! After getting our fingers nice and chalky we called her up on her phone and had her look out her window. We didn’t get inside, but I’m pretty sure we were able to at least put a smile on her face. And I bet there were lots of smiles that ended up coming from that simple little act. It’s amazing how the littlest things can sometimes make the biggest difference!

Hoping to brighten Sister Erlendsson's day with a little love and some chalk.

Thursday- April 23rd

OMG!!! This morning was absolutely glorious! Okay, so if you haven’t noticed Sister Parke and I really like to have fun, be silly, and even get our pranks on. Well, so back on April fool’s day, Steve and Keri who we live with ended up going out of town and when we both tried to pull pranks on the other—we failed miserably. So we came up with the idea that we would make the whole month of April a FREE GAME for pranks! Not really sure Steve knew what he had gotten himself into, but April 23rd was finally our day for the big prank! We had to do it just right or it wouldn’t work! Steve gets up early every morning and today he happened to go downstairs to the gym to ride the bike and we just happened to set our alarm 30 minutes early. When our alarm went off and I heard Steve downstairs I knew today was the day! And then it happened… Sister Parke and I pulled off a prank that will go down in the history books! I took our cell phone and went and hid in the hall closet while Sister Parke frantically went walking around the house “looking for me” ;) Then she hit Steve with it! “Steve, have you seen Sister Larson?! Her shoes are gone and our phone is missing. I just woke up to go to the bathroom and when I looked over she wasn’t in her bed!” Everything just lined up too perfectly! Steve played it really cool and tried not to get too worried, but you could tell the wheels in his head were turning. He told Sister Parke about one of his missionary companions on his mission who happened to run away and was gone for three days! Then he suggested they call the phone. They tried calling it twice and I sent it to voicemail. I could hear Steve tell Sister Parke, she is ignoring us because she is sending it straight to voicemail. Right then I sent Steve’s phone a nice little text informing him he had been PRANKED and we just pulled the greatest April fools trick on him! Just as he was reading the text I walked into the gym and right after reading it he looked up and saw BOTH of us just standing there dying in laughter! He couldn’t believe it! Our first April fools trick we tried he gave us like a 6 out of ten… however, this time he said we rocked a 9 out of 10! Oh yeah! What can I say, Sister Parke are just full of surprises! You all better watch out! Just kidding! ;)

That morning we did a little FMSC service and then on our way home we swung by Steve Burnham’s house (different Steve—new convert Steve) and decided we needed to show him some appreciation for all that he does! That man is constantly helping out. He is ALWAYS there when you need him! In fact, he even got the nickname “I’ll be there” because more often than not that is the text response we get back after asking him if he can help us out with something. Steve is just the man! So what did we do you ask? Well, we attacked his front door with post-its of course!

Who says you can't have fun with Post-it notes?!

That evening we had dinner or at the Alme’s and then we had a great lesson over at Rahel’s and Mercy was able to join us too. Listen to how cool Heaven (Rahel’s 9 year old daughter) is… two days earlier we gave her the New Testament stories for kids and when we saw her today she had read almost all 150 pages of it. She said, “I hope it’s okay that I brought it to school with me to read. I just wanted to keep reading about Jesus.” And then she went on to tell us about all of her favorite different miracles Christ preformed! We couldn’t believe it! Who is this little girl and where did she come from?!

Then we went to teach a first lesson to Kathy (a lady we met last Saturday on the street). Holy smokes we did NOT know what was about to happen! You will never believe it, but Kathy just happens to be the most GOLDEN investigator we have ever met! She's golden and then dipped in gold some more! This lady is nothing but AWESOME!!! She is probably in her 70’s and she is just a hoot! She has been searching for TRUTH her entire life. Every question she had, we had the answer for her and everything she said she believed we couldn’t believe we were hearing because it is exactly what we know and teach! It was an incredible lesson! We left her place higher than a kite!

Friday- April 24th

Today we was our planning/phone call making day. That night we went to visit Sister Petersen and then we tried to see Sister Erlendsson. Sister Erlendsson has had us quite worried lately because she won’t let us come and see her gosh dang it! Tonight we tried our darn hardest to get in. We had to pull some sneaky cards, but she eventually let us in. Her friend Julia (not a really good friend… actually quite a bad influence if we are going to be honest) was over. We had a short little lesson with them. Julia was just drinking away. Oh I wish so bad, I could just get her out of Sister Erlendsson’s life! She seems to make things much worse. But we were happy to be able to at least get in her apartment. I think I probably gave her like four hugs before I left. I love that little lady so much!!!

Saturday- April 25th

This morning we went over to the Bishop’s for a meeting with the elders. After Sister Parke and I tried our hardest to get Theodore back from the elders, but sadly we failed. Then it was off to the gym to meet up with Brother Longstreet to hit stuff! At one point I was working on throwing elbows at Brother Longstreet. He normally is holding up a big pad, but he put it down and told me to hit him. “What?!” Yep, I heard it right, again he told me to hit him… So I did! I throw him a big elbow and the next thing I knew I had actually HIT HIM! He didn’t move fast enough. So now both Sister Parke and I have both hit him. What can I say, he asked for it! Oh well.

Today we had some good visits, but the end of the day was by far the very best! We had the Klenotiches come over to Kathy’s with us to teach her the plan of Salvation. Oh my goodness, it was a fantastic lesson! We were over there just two nights earlier and tonight Kathy told us she is almost through 2 NEPHI!!! Who does that?!?! The spirit was so strong! We were all able to bear strong testimonies of God’s plan for us. And then we asked Kathy if she would come to church on Sunday and she didn’t even hesitate! Kathy is getting baptized! There is no doubt in my mind that she won’t! She has been searching for this for way too long not too!

Sunday- April 26th

Today Kathy came to church with the Klenotiches and she LOVED it!!! Honestly, I’m speechless trying to even explain how cool this lady is! She is practically already a member of the church—it’s just crazy! Later during Primary, Sister Parke and I went in to help with sharing time. We shared a story about a boy who changed the world… his name is Joseph Smith! The kids seemed to enjoy our little lesson so much that after church they came up to us with cards they had made. How cute is that?!

Okay, well it’s time to run… until next keep. KOKO

-Sister Larson

Rockin' the shades!

Got caught in the rain... So much for that umbrella.